


Midnight Conversations

by entirely_too_tall



Series: NurseyDex Week 2017 [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Bedsharing, Gen, Referenced racism, referenced islamophobia, room sharing, talking about 9/11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-12-02 17:28:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11514051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entirely_too_tall/pseuds/entirely_too_tall
Summary: “Hey Dex. What did you wanna be when you were a kid? I wanted to be a fireman."“Go to sleep Nursey.”---In which a late night conversation after lights out brings out the deeper feelings of a certain Derek Malik Nurse.





	Midnight Conversations

**Author's Note:**

> Day 2 theme: Bedsharing and Room Sharing
> 
> Find the event and themes [here](https://nurseydexweek.tumblr.com/post/162330031741/nurseydex-week-2017-july-16-22).
> 
> This one is written entirely as a conversation only, in the early fanfic tradition of dialogue-centric character-driven fics. I was thinking about how I used to talk to my best friend in the dorms late into the night when we shared a room. This is how I imagine late night talks to be like, with a dash of racial and religious fear for safety from a PoC point of view. I am not Brown nor a Muslim, I am Chinese. If this feels not ok to you, let me know. This will hit upon 9/11, if you wish to avoid that sort of thing.
> 
> Check Please and its characters belong to Ngozi, I am only expanding upon it for our collective non-commercial pleasure.

“Hey Dex.”

“What, Nursey.”

“What did you wanna be when you were a kid? As in, when you were young, what did you want to be when you were a grown up?”

“Go to sleep Nursey.”

“I wanted to be a fireman.”

“Pfft, you? You can hardly stay upright without hurting yourself, how are you gonna save people from burning buildings and shit?”

“Says the one who bangs his shins into the desk every week.”

“You keep moving it!”

“I like to have it more under the window so there’s more natural light, we’ve gone over this Pointdexter.”

“And I’ve told _you_ there’s not enough space for me to move out from the ladder, Nurse.”

“Whatever. You still never told me what you wanted to be.”

“…”

“…”

“… I wanted to be a cop.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. My dad had a buddy from high school who’s a cop, family friend who comes for a lot of events and stuff and hangs around. Looked cool in a uniform I guess.”

“So you like your men in a uniform huh?”

“Shut up.”

“Guess we have that in common.”

“I’m going to sleep now.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“I still wanna, you know?”

“You wha?”

“I still wanna be a fireman. NYC needs a lot of firemen.”

“You want to be a fireman because New York needs more firemen?”

“We lost a lot of men during 9/11.”

“Oh.”

“…”

“Do you, like, um… Did you know anyone who…”

“No, like, I was just 4 years old. I only really knew my moms, and I didn’t lose them.”

“Oh, okay. That’s… good. I guess?”

“Māmān was supposed to meet a client in Windows of the World, the restaurant at the top of one of the towers. But amma was sick so māmān stayed at home.”

“…”

“I didn’t learn any of this until years later. There was this bomb plot in 09 that they managed to stop, but it was gonna hit the subways in New York. It was so scary, and then it turned out that the bombers were Muslim and the FBI deported this imam from Queens as a scapegoat and it was just too much. People were freaking out about Islam again and amma never takes off her shawl, even after 9/11 she kept it on, but this one scared her so much she didn’t even leave the house and didn’t wear her shawl when she did. Māmān gave me the talk after that. Shit’s so messed up.”

“Hey, you need me to get down there? Sounds like you could use a hug.”

“Nah, it’s fine. I’m just… I’m fine.”

“Okay.”

“…”

“…”

“Ask me again.”

“What?”

“Ask me again.”

“Nursey, I’m gonna come down and lie down next to you and give you a hug, okay?”

“Okay.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“Is this better? Is this okay?”

“Yeah… thanks Dexy.”

“…”

“…”

“Can I ask, what happened that made you think of this?”

“I was watching YouTube, videos of spoken word, and Sarah Kay had this one about the shooting in Jakarta and talked about how she remembered 9/11. It was a good poem and I didn’t feel anything about it then. Must have stuck to me a lot more than I realized. Sorry for all this emo poet shit I’m putting on you.”

“Hey hey, what’s a brother here for? I got your back.”

“Thanks bro.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“I’m so scared. I get so scared sometimes, thinking about how easy it is to lose māmān and ammi. How easily I could have lost them, could still lose them. Amma gets yelled at all the time now, slurs and shit. And NYC cops are fucking racists. Moms could get shot by islamophobes or they could get shot by cops. It’ so fucking scary and I just —”

“Hey, hey, shh, shh, it’s gonna be alright —”

“No it’s fucking not! People of color are being shot, black _cops_ are being shot by white cops. Everything is going to hell so you don’t get to tell _me_ it’s gonna be alright, white boy.”

“…”

“I’m… I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped at you. You were just trying to help.”

“No, no I’m sorry, it’s… I’ve never had… I’m sorry. I said the wrong thing. I don’t wanna be a cop anymore.”

“It’s not your fault. You can still be a cop. Just promise me you won’t be a racist fuckwad.”

“Heh, I promise. But nah, I figured with CS, I’d go work in a startup and make an actual decent living.”

“Nice try with the pivot, but I’ll let it slide.”

“Thanks. Come here you.”

“I don’t need your hugs anymore, William.”

“You want it.”

“It’s the only reason I keep you around.”

“Rude. After all I’ve done for you tonight.”

“My point exactly. All you’ve done is hug me.”

“Shut up and go to sleep, Nursey.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“There’s this poem, about 9/11, by this Polish poet Wisława Szymborska. My Intro to Poetry professor brought it out to us on 9/11 freshman year, asked us where we’d been, what we remembered.”

“Yeah?”

“Most of us were too young, but some of the older kids, the seniors taking it as their blowoff class, they remember.”

“What’s it like?”

“It’s weird. Every year, fewer and fewer people remember, Julie said. Julie’s the prof. And like, soon, there’ll be people born after it who won’t know a world before. The seniors, one of them, he lost his uncle, ended up bawling in class. We all did.”

“Oh. That’s why.”

“Yeah you guys were tiptoeing the hell out around me that day.”

“We should have said something.”

“Bitty made me caramel pear pie.”

“It’s not the same.”

“I was trying to be chill. You guys didn’t know.”

“Still.”

“Anyway, I fell in love with her poetry. She manages to make mundane life sound like the most precious gift in the world, and coming from her having lived through World War 2, I believe it.”

“You gonna read some for me, then, Nurse?”

“They jumped from the burning floors, one, two, a few more, higher, lower. The photograph halted them in life, and now keeps them above the earth toward the earth. Each is still complete, with a particular face and blood well hidden. There’s enough time for hair to come loose, for keys and coins to fall from pockets. They’re still within the air’s reach, within the compass of places that have just now opened. I can do only two things for them: describe this flight and not add a last line. Photograph from September 11.”

“… Shit. You memorized all that?”

“Yea, this was the one Julie showed us in class, and I memorized it that week.”

“Damn. Yeah she’s good. Damn.”

“…”

“…”

“I thought that when I become a fireman, I’d have lots of free time, hanging around the fire station waiting for the call. I’d sit and people watch, tons of people walk by fire stations all the time, and I’d write about life and stuff. And also write about firemen life, the things they go through, get some publicity and representation out there. Make it real enough for people to care about funding these heroes that save lives.”

“That’s cool.”

“I’ll let you ride on my shiny red firetruck.”

“Haha, I’d like that actually.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“Goodnight, Nursey.”

“Stay.”

“Okay, I’ll stay.”

“Goodnight, Dexy.”

“Goodnight.”

**Author's Note:**

> Māmān, with the ā as in n **o** t, is Farsi for mother. Amma is Urdu for mother. Derek Malik Nurse is a Muslim from both sides, and he has not had to fast for Ramadan in college but had to in school growing up, and playing hockey then was so hard, he’s glad he’s lucky and hit the sweet spot where Ramadan is in the summer during his college years. 
> 
> Learn more about:  
> 1\. [the 2009 NY Subway bombing plot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_New_York_City_Subway_and_United_Kingdom_plot)  
> 2\. the imam from Queens, [Ahmad Wais Afzali](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Wais_Afzali), who was deported and his last words in America were “God bless America”  
> 3\. [the 2016 Jakarta shootings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Jakarta_attacks)  
> 4\. Sarah Kay's poem [Jakarta, January](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OemkJy0y0b0) and the [transcript](http://ohsarahkay.tumblr.com/jakarta_january)  
> 5\. [Wisława Szymborska](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wis%C5%82awa_Szymborska) and her poem [Photograph for September 11](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48799/photograph-from-september-11), which was introduced to me by my professor [Julie Price Pinkerton](http://www.juliepricepinkerton.com) (herself a fantastic poet) during my Intro to Poetry class in college
> 
> Thank you for reading. Find me on [tumblr](http://ohjustletmewriteinpeace.tumblr.com).


End file.
